Verstappen pleased to close in on Lotus

Max Verstappen believes heating issues cost Toro Rosso a chance of a higher finish at the Mexican Grand Prix but was nonetheless pleased to close the gap on Lotus in the Constructors' championship.

Verstappen continued his fine run of form by placing ninth, enabling Toro Rosso to move a point closer to Lotus in the scrap for sixth in the standings.

"I had a good start and to be running in P6 during my first stint was great, but we had some heating issues, which definitely cost us a lot of lap time unfortunately," he said.

"But we need to focus on the positives, I think P9 is the best we could do today and I’m happy to have scored some more points, closing the gap to Lotus a bit more."

Carlos Sainz Jr. dropped to 13th position and rued a mysterious lack of pace which cost him several places.

"When the Safety Car came out, we pitted for another set of Soft tyres for my last stint but, all of a sudden and I don’t know why, we lost a lot of time per lap and started to go backwards," he explained.

"It’s a shame, because we were actually quite quick before that, overtaking our rivals like the two Force India’s, but the characteristics of this circuit made the race very tricky today."